Jumping Flash! • Eurogamer.net

With the addition of the first PS one titles to the European PlayStation Store all the pieces are finally in place for the secondary battlefront of the Next Gen war - online downloads. These impulse purchases have been the Holy Grail for the games industry for many years, enabling publishers to make use of their back catalogue and drive new formats at the same time. The Wii Virtual Console leads the pack as far as choice goes - with over 100 emulated console classics to choose from - but has disappointed many with its seemingly random choices and unhelpful interface. Xbox Live Arcade, on the other hand, has set a high benchmark for original content as well as offering updated versions of gaming classics.

So where does the PlayStation Store fit into this digital wonderland? The original content has been tentative at best and the choice is still rather sparse. However, it could be that the PS3 makes its stand on pricing. Not only do you get to see exactly how much your download costs in actual currency, but the prices for the first batch of original PlayStation classics are more than reasonable. Just GBP 3.49 (or around EUR 5) is a small price to pay for beloved 32bit titles, especially when compared to the cost of N64 games on the Wii. Even though the fact that the original PlayStation is now officially "retro" makes me feel very, very old, there's a huge list of titles I'm aching to revisit.

Of course, if you own a PS3 and PSP there's an added bonus. Update to the latest firmware, register the PSP with the PS3 and you can transfer your PS one downloads across to your handheld simply by connecting them with a USB cable and selecting "Copy". It's a remarkably simple process, and the transfer speeds are impressively fast - over 400Mb of Crash Bandicoot rattled down the wire in just a few minutes.